HEREDITARY (2018) (Blu-ray Review)

HEREDITARY (2018) 

Label: Lionsgate 
Region Code: A
Rating: R 
Duration: 127 Minutes
Video: 1080p HD Widescreen (2.00:1)  
Audio: English 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio with Optional English Subtitles 
Director: Ari Aster
Cast: Toni Collette, Alex Wolff, Milly Shapiro, Ann Dowd, Gabriel Byrne

Synopsis: When Ellen, the matriarch of the Graham family, passes away, her daughter's family begins to unravel cryptic and increasingly terrifying secrets about their ancestry. The more they discover, the more they find themselves trying to outrun the sinister fate they seem to have inherited. Making his feature debut, writer-director Ari Aster unleashes a nightmare vision of a domestic breakdown that exhibits the craft and precision of a nascent auteur, transforming a familial tragedy into something ominous and deeply disquieting, and pushing the horror movie into chilling new terrain with its shattering portrait of heritage gone to hell.

Hereditary openins with the death of a family matriarch who held many secrets from her daughter Annie (Toni Collette, Clockwatchers). Annie is an artist who specializes in creating miniatures, deeply upset at the death of her mother she offers a eulogy for her that sort of lays bare their strained relationship and her mother's secretive ways. Gabriel Byrne (Miller's Crossing) plays Annie quiet husband, a very reserved sort of clinical guy whom we learn was formerly her psychiatrist. They have two children together, 13-year old Charlie (Milly Shapiro) who is a creepoy kid with dark tendencies (and a peanut allergy) and 16-year old Peter (Alex Wolff, My Friend Dahmer) who seems adrift and delicate. The family dynamic is strained to say the least, the root cause of the family strife seems to stem from Annie's side of the family, bolstered by the passing of her secretive/cold mother and a family history of mental illness, which seems to have taken the life of her older brother years earlier. Annie feels her family is cursed, fearing she's ruining her children despite her best intention, with years of mental illness and family anguish taking their toll, it's a solid dramatic set-up. All of this Annie doesn't deal with at home, but she secretly confesses as much to a group of strangers at a support group for those whom have lost loved ones, which is where she meets a woman named Joan (Ann Dowd, The Leftovers) who has also lost a loved one. 

The new friendship seems to offer a small modicum of solace to Annie, but things at home are strained, we learn of a sleepwalking incident years earlier that have strained her relationship with her kids, a distance she has yet to bridge. Things take a turn for the worse when one night she forces Peter to take his sister to a party with him, what follows is a shocker tragedy that rocks the family, and you start to think, yeah, this family might be cursed after all.

That's when we're introduced to a supernatural element, seemingly kind Joan introduces Annie to the ways of spirit-meddling by way of a seance, which Joan in turn brings home and makes her surviving family members get involved with, and what transpires sort of turns the idea of a family curse into a real-thing, not just some "oh, poor me" thing to say. 

I won't spoil anymore than I've already hinted at, but this movie is incredibly intense, it's sort of crazy that this is Aster's first film as a director, he shows incredible control over the tone and atmosphere of the film, guiding it along an assured hand that keeps it from going right of the rails, and this is a film that could have careened into hilarity throughout. Collette's performance is intense, almost to the point to where laughter might be a valid reaction to it, because sometimes stuff is just t0o intense and you have to laugh to relieve the pressure, and this is a film keeps building and building to the breaking point, exploding into a wonderfully creepy final sprint that left me spinning in my seat with unease and delight. 

The movie is expertly crafted, I enjoyed the slow-burn, and the gore in this film is used incredibly well, it's not over-flowing with geysers of blood, but when used it's always a shocker and a punch straight to the gut, with not one but several gruesome decapitation scenes that will haunt your nightmares, I'll never look at a rope saw the same way ever again. 

Audio/Video: Hereditary arrives on Blu-ray from Lionsgate in 1080p HD, framed in 2.00:1 widescreen, and looking very good. Black levels are very strong, a lot of what happens in this film takes place drenched in darkness and the shadow detail is very good, the way creepy things seem to just barely manifest out of the dark is so startling, a very well-lensed and executed film all around, and it looks great in HD. The audio comes by way of an English DTS-HD MA Surround 5.1 mix that is subtle and potent when called upon, the unnerving score from Colin Stetson really gets some oomph in the mix, optional English subtitles are provided. 

Extras include a makin-of featurette with the cast and crew, 16-min of deleted scenes and an image gallery of the miniatures in the film, plus some Lionsgate trailers, including Hereditary.

Special Features: 
- Deleted Scenes (16 min) 
- “Cursed: The True Nature of Hereditary” Featurette (20 min) 
- “Evil in Miniature” Photo Gallery

I watched this with my kids and we kept murmuring amongst ourselves in disbelief as the film slowly unfolded, I had not watched any of the trailers for this before I saw it, and I sort of had thought I figured it out early on, I thought I knew where it was going, but it got me.  This is a slice of riveting psychological horror with a n unsettling supernatural creepiness that hung with me long after the closing credits. This is not a feel good movie, it's a soul-destroying feel-bad movie, but one that I was talking about and trying to figure out for hours afterward, the mark of very fine film, definitely one of the best of 2018 in my book.

Blu-ray Review: DEAD MAN (1995)

DEAD MAN (1995)

Label: Echo Bridge Entertainment
Region Code: Region A
Rating: R
Duration: 121 mins
Video: 1080p 16x9 Widescreen (1.78:1)
Audio: DTS-HD MA Stereo 2.0
Director: Jim Jarmusch
Cast: Johhny Depp, Gary Framer, Lance Henriksen, Michael Wincott, Euegen Byrd, Mili Aviatal, Crispin Glover, Iggy Pop, Billy Bob Thornton, Jared Harris, Gabriel Byrne, Robert Mitchum, John Hurt, Alfred Molina

In Jim Jarmucsh's black and white acid-western DEAD MAN Johnny Depp (THE NINTH GATE) portrays William Blake, a young accountant from Cleveland who packs his bags and embarks on a journey to start life anew in the Western frontier town of Machine where he has been offered a job at the Dickinson Metal Works. On the train ride from to Machine the soft-handed city rube sticks out like a sore thumb among the Western frontier folk and rugged buffalo hunters who shoot buffalo from the train. The ride gets weirder when the trains soot covered coal shoveler (Crispin Glover, RIVER'S EDGE) enters the car and sits across from Blake offering a cryptic foretelling of doom.

Arriving in Machine young Blake walks into the metal works where he is informed by the business manager (John Hurt, ALIEN) that he's a month late and the position is no longer available. Blake demands to talk with the Mr.  Dickinson (Robert Mitchum, CAPE FEAR) who promptly drives him off the property at the business end of a double-barrel shotgun. With no job prospects and dwindling funds Blake wanders the grim streets of Machine until he comes to a saloon where he makes the acquaintance of young prostitute named Thel (Mili Avital) who take him home to her bed where her jealous ex-lover Charlie (Gabriel Byrne, MILLER'S CROSSING) bursts into the room and fires upon Blake but Thel throws herself in front of the bullet which kills her and strikes Blake in the chest. Blake grabs the woman's gun and kills Charlie, wounded and dazed he escapes through a window and leaves town on the back of a stolen pony. As it turns out Charlie was the son of Mr. Dickinson and the wealthy factory owner places a large bounty on the head of Blake for the murder of his son and even lays the death of Thel on him, too. Three cold-blooded killers are hired to hunt down Blake; Conway Twill (Michael Wincott, CURTAINS) and Johnny "The Kid" Pickett (Eugene Byrd, TV's BONES) and a cannibalistic psychopath named Cole Wilson (Lance Henriksen, ALIENS).

Blake awakens the next day to the sight of an American Indian calling himself Nobody (Gary Farmer, GHOST DOG) performing surgery on his chest wound but he tells Blake that the bullet is too close to his heart and that death is a certainty. Nobody believes that Blake is the reincarnation of the poet William Blake and that he will accompany him to the Pacific Ocean so that he can return his spirit to it's proper place in the spirit world. The Native American outcast acts as Blake's guide to the cleansing waters of the West. The duo amass quite a bodycount in their wake as they encounter many would-be bounty hunters and scoundrels on their path.

The film is certainly a strange beast and has a surreal disconnect that lends an existential quality to Blake's doomed journey through what I would call  purgatory. The setting is pure authentic Western and evokes the scent of sawdust and woodsmoke. The film boasts a stellar supporting actors that includes screen legend Robert Mitchum in his final performance plus a cast of gristle-faced characters whose craggy features drink up Robby Muller's (TO LIVE AND DIE IN L.A., REPO MAN)  black and white cinematography. There are also notable appearance from rocker Iggy Pop (HARDWARE) as the deranged bible-thumping transvestite leader of a trio of fur traders that includes a pre-SLING BLADE Billy Bob Thornton, and speaking of craggy faces there's also a came from Gibby Haines of the Butthole Surfers, it's quite a cast of characters we have here.

The film operates on several levels ranging from the existential to referential, particularly the the poems of William Blake in much the same way that the Coen Brother's O, BROTHER WHERE ART THOU? mined Ulysses' The Odyssey but I really just enjoy it as a trippy western that tends to defy expectations at every turn. I tend not to read too much into it I just enjoy it but the subtext is there for those of who looking for something deeper.The film was a major disappointment at the box office in '95 when it was released, returning only a ninth of it's budget, apparently 1995 wasn't a great time for a black and white western revival but this is a film that a lot of folks missed the first time around and I say it's well worth a watch whether you be a fan of Depp, Jarmusch or just really awesome Westerns.   

Blu-ray: Echo Bridge's 16x9 enhanced 1.78:1 widescreen AVC encoded HD transfer does the film proper justice. The black and white imagery looks great in 1080p with a nice retention of the film's natural grain structure without the disservice of DNR scrubbing, it looks pretty great. The transfer offers good contrast, decent black levels and fine detail; facial hair, clothing and other textures are nicely resolved. A definite improvement over the previous DVD edition. The DTS-HD MA Stereo 2.0 sounds quite good, too. Dialogue is crisp and there are no distortions that I could discern plus Neil Young's amazing score soars throughout the film. I will say that a more atmospheric 5.1 surround mix could have gone a long way but what we have here is very nice. Special features are few but are at least present, the previous Miramax titles from Echo Bridge have been mostly bereft of bonus content and this is a most welcome exception. What we get are a selection of standard definition letterboxed deleted scenes and a Neil Young music video featuring in-studio footage of him performing the song with a montage of clips from the film overlayed with Johnny Depp narrating William Blake's poetry. I believe that the only feature not carried over from the previous Miramax edition is a theatrical trailer.

Special Features:
- Deleted Scenes (15:54)
- Neil Young Music Video (3:31)

Verdict: DEAD MAN is a film just not mentioned enough when discussing the careers of Johnny Depp, Jim Jarmusch or just kick ass Westerns in general. The mid-nineties weren't exactly a golden age of cinema so don't let this one sink into obscurity, if you haven't seen it you are missing out on what I would call a must-see, strange and offbeat western that stands aside GHOST DOG: THE WAY OF THE SAMURAI as one of my favorite Jim Jarmusch films.